It felt odd hearing his own terminology come out of the AnMan so smoothly. It made Hamilton feel proud, and just a little embarrassed. Before he could reply, the android looked up.

“We are here,” Dan announced. The taxi came to a smooth halt in front of a handsome row of townhouses that had obviously been designed by a professional, rather than an amateur, architect.

Hamilton checked his notes again. “This fellow, his name is…”

“Farrell Cooper.”

“Yes. And the name of his ritual club…?”

“The Bath and Garter Society, Hamilton.”

“Yeah, right. Bath and Garter. Sounds kind of kinky. Group-sex clubs usually don’t work well in the ritual category. I wonder what’s so unusual about this one.”

For fifteen hours each week Farrell Cooper did service to society in his Vocation, as a veterinarian’s assistant at the New Hampstead Riding Stables. His artistic avocation was leather-working—a suspiciously large number of the pieces on display in his home were saddles and other equestrian tack. It was no surprise, then, that Cooper’s Athletic Hobby was riding.

His registered Altruism Hobby consisted of five hours a week helping at a local Robot Free Clinic, “caring for our modern serfs, who have given us this banquet of free time,” as he put it, rather stiffly.

Cooper was a tall, stooped, hawk-faced man with pursed lips and a dour expression. He welcomed Dan and Hamilton without enthusiasm, and accepted their amateur-researcher credentials with barely a glance. After showing them his work and study rooms he led them into the parlor.

Hamilton sat on the tooled-leather sofa and opened his notebook. “Well, Mr. Cooper, we’ve seen examples of your art skill, and your other avocations. What we’d really like to know more about is your ritual club. Our survey shows that you spend the maximum time allowed—a full twenty hours a week—working for this… Bath and Garter Society. Yet the group seems to have full-scale meetings only a few times a year. Just what is your function in the club?”